Book Launch - Beyond The Broken Years by Peter Stanley with special guest Bill Gammage

Join us as we welcome Peter Stanley for the launch of his latest book Beyond The Broken Years. 

Fifty years after The Broken Years, Bill Gammage’s classic on Great War soldiers, was published – provocative military historian Peter Stanley argues why it’s vital for Australians to understand how our military past has been created, by whom, how and with what consequences.

Beyond The Broken Years has been described by the late Tim Bowden AM, author, radio and television broadcaster, producer and oral historian: ‘Peter Stanley’s evocation of Australia’s military history is not to be missed. Half a century after Bill Gammage’s superb book The Broken Years was published, Stanley has cleverly drawn on the cream of Australian military historians to underline the key elements of Australia’s military past. However, it is Stanley’s own analysis of the importance of Australia’s military past that has given new meaning to the importance of Australians at war. Remarkably, Stanley has researched 1300 books written by Australian authors since 1974. The result is a gripping overview of our military history that should not be missed.’ 

Stanley explores military history and the storytellers – from historians Charles Bean, Henry Reynolds, Joan Beaumont and David Horner to ‘’storians’ Peter FitzSimons and Les Carlyon. He grapples with what it means to write military history, its different approaches, the rise of popular writers and much more. He asks readers to consider a genre that plays a central role in the Australian identity, but which many take for granted. We will be joined by none other than Bill Gammage himself for this event, not to be missed by any military history enthusiast.

Peter Stanley recently retired as Research Professor at UNSW Canberra. He has published over forty books, many in Australian military history, among which Bad Characters jointly won the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History in 2011. He was formerly Principal Historian at the Australian War Memorial, where he worked from 1980 to 2007. He has been a crucial participant in the field for over forty years, known as mentor, supervisor and examiner of doctoral theses, reviewer, critic, exhibition curator, and collaborator. He was inaugural President of Honest History and is a Principal of Defending Country, a coalition dedicated to encouraging the War Memorial to keep its undertaking to acknowledge Frontier Conflict fittingly.